Posts Tagged ‘Muslim Brotherhood’

The Egyptian general who deposed Muslim Brotherhood-backed former President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, announced late Wednesday he will run for president. Abdul Fatah el-Sisi, who holds the rank of Field Marshal as head of the country’s armed forces, is also the Defense Minister in Egypt’s current transitional government.

“These recent years of our nation’s history have conclusively shown that no one can become president of Egypt against the will of the people or short of their support,” Sisi said in his speech on national television. “Never can anyone force Egyptians to vote for a president they do not want. Therefore I am here before you humbly stating my intention to run for the presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt . . . Only your support will grant me this great honor.”

Following el-Sisi’s announcement, Interim President Adly Mansour issued a statement saying he had promoted Egyptian military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Sedki Sobhi to the rank of first lieutenant general.

According to the state-run Al Ahram newspaper, el-Sisi met earlier with military officials to tell them he was stepping down. The meeting was also expected to help determine who would succeed the Egyptian strongman to the post. Today (Thursday) he is expected to submit his official resignation to President Mansour at a Cabinet meeting.

The radical Islamist opposition movement in Egypt hates el-Sisi and continue to riot against the transitional government that succeeded Mohammed Morsi. They also perceive el-Sisi to be instrumental in this week’s Supreme Court decision to sentence 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. Ongoing street violence and bloody clashes with police by Islamist opposition forces have led to at least one death this week, according to Al Ahram, quoting figures from Egypt’s health ministry, with eight others injured in the riots.

El-Sisi has also been largely responsible for Egypt’s recent cooperation with Israel in clearing and destroying the terrorist smuggling tunnels that have honeycombed the area under the borders between Egypt, Gaza and Israel, a move that has earned the military leader the enmity of terrorists in Sinai and Hamas leaders in Gaza.

The general is widely supported by moderates on both sides of the border who would like to see the country get back to a “normal life” and by those in Egypt who are heartily sick of the violence and lack of tourism in a nation that once played host to regular visits from wealthy international clientele.

Four masked Muslim Brotherhood gunmen killed one soldier and wounded three others on Thursday and fled on two motorcycles, Egyptian officials and eyewitness said.

The rare attack on an army bus in the capital came eight months after Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military coup. Previous attacks in Cairo have targeted policeman, and Thursday’s assassination of a soldier is bound to spark a strong retaliation form the regime and possibly provoke a new round of violence that has marked day-to-day life in Egypt since the rebellion against Hosni Mubarak three years ago.

If the US military doesn’t know better, then who are we to trust with our defense? Ourselves. Remember that.

There have been over 22,000 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11 — each one with imprimatur of a Muslim cleric. You would have thought Anwar Awlaki, Pentagon darling and leading jihad cleric, might have taught the DoD a thing or two.

ISNA has a well-documented extremist history. In 1991, the Muslim Brotherhood listed ISNA as one of its main fronts. Declassified FBI memos said ISNA is a component of the Muslim Brotherhood, who sees its “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

In 2007, the U.S. government labeled ISNA a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial involving the Holy Land Foundation funneling money to Hamas. The label was upheld in 2009 because of “ample” evidence linking ISNA to Hamas. Last year, ISNA’s Canadian affiliate lost its status as a charity because of its accounting discrepancies and links to Pakistani terrorists.

…

Here’s what’s really “problematic”: The U.S. government says ISNA is a Muslim Brotherhood entity and labeled it an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism trial. That same government is using ISNA to pick military chaplains and is a top outreach partner of the U.S. government.

Terrorists linked with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for gunning down three Egyptian policemen in the Sinai Peninsula Sunday, attacking the policemen’s bus with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns.

The Egyptian army responded through a message on Facebook, “We assure the Egyptian people of the great determination of its men to fight black terrorism and the complete elimination of the advocates of oppression and sedition and blasphemy from followers of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The military regime in Egypt has branded the Muslim Brotherhood Public Enemy No. 1 and has linked it with virtually all terror that has plagued Egypt since the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi last year.

Saturday was the third anniversary of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, and at least 49 people were killed in battles, mostly with supporters of the Brotherhood. The Interior Ministry stated it arrested more than 1,000 “rioters.”

For those with short reminders, the Obama administration helped get rid of Mubarak and fostered close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, which won post-Mubarak elections. Washington then figured out that maybe the Brotherhood was not so much better than Mubarak, if not worse, and backed Morsi’s ouster.

Then it backed the new military regime, headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, expected to win the next election for president.

The current regime and Morsi share two things in common: violence and hatred of Israel.

An Egyptian government official called on people to confront the Muslim Brotherhood “for a counter-revolution” and to celebrate on January 25 the anniversary of the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim told an Egyptian television channel Wednesday, “I reiterate my call to the Egyptian people: you have to take to the streets on 25 January next to celebrate because we’ve discovered Muslim Brotherhood plots aiming to wreak havoc on that day with the help of some sports groups and by inducing some anti-military and anti-Brotherhood political forces.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and those forces plan to infiltrate Tahir Square through multiple axes by mobilizing about 15,000 young people to stir chaos and revive a counter-revolution to 30 June.”

The June 30 revolution refers to last year’s protests that ousted Muslim Brotherhood president Mohammed Morsi.

The revolts against Mubarak and Mori were met with brutal violence by the regimes. More than 2,000 people were killed and tens of thousands were injured.

Egyptians gave landslide support for a proposed new constitution after two days of voting, but the Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the balloting, which was accompanied by violence, ballot stuffing and bribes.

An official told the Associated Press that 90 percent of the voters cast a “yes” vote, but BuzzFeed reported that it obtained documents that provided evidence that the voting was a “disaster” for democracy.

The ruling military regime needs lopsided approval for the constitution to help it drive the Muslim Brotherhood into the ground and pave the way for army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to run for president.

Pro-Muslim Brotherhood groups blocked roads so people could get to the polling stations, and they also bribed people not to vote.

One activist told BuzzFeed, “What I saw at the polling stations were not just problems’ they were disasters.” He said army personnel stationed inside the polling station handed out gifts to voters, and he also “saw two women taking extra ballots and putting them in the box.”

One international election observation monitor said there was an atmosphere of intimidation in the polling stations.

Outside the voting locations, Muslim Brotherhood protests clashed with Egyptian police, and eight people were killed in two clashes on Tuesday.

The interim government in Egypt has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. This step follows a massive bombing outside of a police headquarters in northern Egypt on Tuesday, Dec. 24.

That car bombing took place in the northern delta city of Mansoura. At least 15 people were killed, the vast majority of whom were police officers. Some members of the interim Egyptian government blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the attack; the Brotherhood publicly condemned the bombing.

According to the Associated Press, Hossam Eissa, the Minister of Higher Education, read out the Cabinet statement after long meeting on Wednesday.

Eissa said: “The Cabinet has declared the Muslim Brotherhood group and its organization as a terrorist organization.”

The declaration gives the military-backed Egyptian government more expansive tools for cracking down on the Brotherhood.